"Memories and Places" with guest curator and performer Siew-Wai Kok with live performance after the screening!!!
April 12th, 2019
Alamo Drafthouse Sloans Lake
[4255 W. Colfax Ave., Denver, CO 80204]
7:30pm Doors - 8:00pm (not punk time) screening.
$10 or pay what you can. No one turned away. (cash preferred)
From Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, KOK Siew-Wai started out as a video artist, and now an improvised vocalist and artist-organizer. She received her B.A. in Media Study at University at Buffalo, and M.F.A. in Electronic Integrated Arts at Alfred University (USA). She has shown her works, curatorial video programs and performed in Asia, Europe, Canada and USA, including allEars Improvised Music Festival (Norway), CTM Festival (Germany), Asian Meeting Festival (Japan), International Film Festival Rotterdam (Netherlands), Les Rencontres Internationales (France), Singapore International Film Festival and many more. Siew-Wai has a deep passion for the experimental and improvisational arts. She is the co-founder and director of the Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video & Music Festival (KLEX) since 2010.
The Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video & Music Festival (KLEX) is an artist-run grassroots international festival of experimental film, video art and music founded in Malaysia in 2010, by a cross-disciplinary group of artists. With an independent spirit and enthusiasm, KLEX aims to serve as a platform to introduce contemporary experimental film, video, and music from the region and worldwide to the Malaysian audience, as well as introducing works from South East Asia and beyond to other parts of the world, to cultivate understanding, learning, friendship and exchange among local, regional and international experimental art communities. KLEX has showcased experimental films, videos, music and performances from around the world - Asia, Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe, Latin America and USA. With the dedication of its tiny yet strong festival committee, the festival has been running for the 10th consecutive year.
Curator’s statement:
"Physical places carry a kind of uniqueness that is special to us due to their architecture, charisma or events that we have experienced there. We identify ourselves with memories and emotions of different places. Some of these sentiments are collective, and some are very personal. This program consists of works about places and memories in different places in Asia, including works from Malaysia, Thailand, Japan and Taiwan. The works adopt various styles such as home video, video poem and experimental documentary. The selected works have been screened in previous versions of KLEX Festival."
Siew-Wai Kok will perform after the program with Debora Bernagozzi and Jason Bernagozzi.
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Alor Setar Pulse (2015)
4:55 min/sound
Andrew Stiff, Malaysia
This video is an exploration of hand painted sunblinds in Alor Setar, Kedah. We are naturally drawn to patterns and order, and even disorder that is presented through a structured or ordered space or medium. It is because of this we see the world sequentially, even though events and communication do not happen sequentially. Using the theme of pulse, the motion of the blinds swaying in the evening breeze, is fractured into a series of cut edits that balance nonlinear disorder against the linear order of color and context.
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NIGHT WITHOUT LIGHT (2015)
4:22 min/sound
Safwan Salleh, Malaysia
The film shows the life of a working class student who likes to make Cara cakes in the midnight, accompanied by his friends. In their humble house, these youngsters find fun, warmth and support with the company of each other. In this family-like atmosphere, they can forget about the tough reality of life for a while, at least before the sun rises!
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Life rhythm in My Family (2015)
4:31 min/sound
Rina Kobayashi, Japan
An experimental home video documenting the routine of care-taking of the artist’s grandmother, who was suffering from lung cancer. Presenting a personal experience observing a close family member that is terminally ill, the artist expresses her concerns with health and family care for the elders.
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AMONG THE BROKEN FURNITURE (2018)
7:39 min / Sound
Ye Mimi, Taiwan
Objects have memories. The more they are worn or broken, the more stories they remember. For three days, the energy of the poem led me to the the ruins in small villages as I carefully carried the wreckage of its words.
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KERONCONG KUALA LUMPUR (2017)
03:19 min / Sound
Low Pey-Sien, Malaysia
‘Keroncong Kuala Lumpur’ (1968), a song by P. Ramlee that expresses hope and aspirations for Kuala Lumpur as the capital of Malaysia at the time. On the other hand, this work reinterprets the rhythm of Kuala Lumpur with recorded sound of typewriter and image montage of Razak Mansions flats which is demolished to make way for development.
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PLAZA RAKYAT (2018)
3:05 min/sound
Ong Sau-Kai, Malaysia
Plaza Rakyat, or the People’s Plaza is a mixed-use skyscraper complex in Kuala Lumpur. The construction was put on hold in 1998 due to financial difficulties causing part of the building remains in an unfinished state since then. This film uses 12 photos to destruct and reconstruct the time and space of the abandoned site.
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Ghost Rabbit & The Casket Sales (2015)
6:40 mins/sound
Arnont Nongyao, Thailand
By this route there is light at the end of the tunnel. When a rabbit becomes a ghost and the casket sales prepare the celebration. Finally the musician will be playing a funeral song for nothing!
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16 x 9 Capsule (2014)
6:40 min/sound
Wuttin Chansataboot, Thailand
“16x9 Capsule” shows vignettes of incidents and situations taking place at different locations around Bangkok. The artist uses the camera to capture trivial moments in an ordinary day and crucial incident in political history of Thailand. Chansataboot intends to express a Buddhist concept, saying that everything keeps rising, standing and then cessation.
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Semalu (2013)
18:40 min/sound
Jimmy Hendrickx, Belgium/Malaysia
“Semalu” means sensitive plant in Malay. The film is a cinematic portrait of the children of Cheras, a suburb in Kuala Lumpur, where it has been in a transitional period of modernization for years. With its stunning visuals and meditative rhythm, the sympathetic filmmaker attempts to seek for beauty and spirituality in this unlikely urban area covered with waste and construction sites, trying to seek for a playground and a peaceful place for these urban children.